overwrote much of /etc.....

<br><br><br>Jack Byers byersj hotmail com
big trouble and of course no backup..
ironically it was during a backup attempt that i messed up...

I have one rhat5.2 sys byers my main machine and it is still ok
I have another rhat6.2 sys corni (mainly my wife's)

Well I was trying to back up my /etc dir of my 5.2 sys byers
by copying it over
to a subdir under a username on my 6.2 sys corni
I used ftp as root and thot i had the right syntax
to get the files copied over to that subdir.

Instead, the files were copied alright but to the rhat6.2 corni /etc
so it overwrote all files that had same name:

[root corni detc]# ftp -i byers
Connected to byers.pacbell.net.
...
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> mget /etc/*
--- using mget to copy files from byers to corni
---i guess i needed the proper subdir on corni as 2nd argument
--- i didnt think this thru carefully, thot by running ftp
--- from the desired subdir on corni would pull the files
--- over to that subdir, but evidently not.
--- instead it pulled the files over to /etc on corni

full reinstall only possibility? or what?
I am not thinking too clearly right now...
any advice appreciated..
Jack